tumor
by nebulabottles
Summary: surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy didn't work. Izaya decides to go home. shizaya oneshot


**ONE**

He's in a club. He briefly wonders why. He knows it's not exactly rocket science – the main reason people go to clubs is to get drunk, dance, forget about everything for a few hours and, if they were lucky, end up going home with an exciting new stranger. However, he doesn't feel a compulsion to do any of those things so he can't fathom why he's in the club full of swaying bodies, bright lights, colorful cocktails and loud, ear-shattering music. He figures it's good for human observation and he should just go with the flow.

And go with the flow he does for a few hours. He has no idea when, how or why he came to the club and he doesn't even know the name of the club or where it is but he doesn't feel these details are important. He flirts shamelessly with a young bartender who looks slightly terrified of him but he doesn't mind as most people have this reaction to him when he refers to them as 'an interesting example of a human being' and 'a fascinating specimen.' He listens out for songs he likes before allowing himself to be taken to the dance floor when a good one finally arrives, weaving in and out of sweaty bodies, rising and falling to the beat. He allows at least seven people to kiss him on the lips, some lingering for longer and some touching other parts of his body too.

He can't help but think something may be wrong with the situation – he feels _hazy_ and his stomach feels _sick_ and he can't quite see straight and he can't hear a word anyone is saying and the room spins around him violently – but he can't quite bring himself to care either.

It feels nice to be free.

Even if free means being groped by weird men in designer suits and being shoved between bodies cramming into a small, hot space and being served disgusting drink after disgusting drink by the young bartender who appears to be growing to like him more and more throughout the night.

Free is free, he decides. It doesn't matter what's happening to him – he's doing it optionally and it doesn't matter if he's enjoying it or not – he's the one in control, he's the one smiling lazily, he's the one letting his vision blur until the club becomes a canvas of different colors bleeding into each other, he's the one who somehow makes it to the grotty bathroom to puke before throwing up over everyone in the club and he's the one who catches his reflection in the stained mirror.

He supposes he used to look better than he does now. Not that he's less attractive – unhealthier is more accurate. He's scarily skinny, easily mistakable as a bulimic or an anorexic and under his crimson eyes are dark circles so purple and black in color they look like they've been scribbled on in sharpie. His skin has a sickly grey glow and his limbs shake, although he isn't quite sure whether that's a side effect of the alcohol rather than something else. He still has a youthful look but he's aged considerably in the last year.

He's examining his reflection carefully when he happens to notice a black beanie on his head. He recalls he always wears this hat, going so far to bathe in it and sleep in it. In his slightly intoxicated and sick state, he can't really remember _why_ he wears the hat and, curious, he decides to pull it off with trembling fingers.

Ah that's right, he recalls.

He's bald, not a hair on his head. The sight also causes him to remember he has no hair anywhere else too. When they say you lose all your hair with chemotherapy, he discovered they truly mean _all_ you hair – armpits, legs, _there_ – nothing is spared. He frowns at the reflection for a few moments, trying to distinguish how having no hair has impacted his appearance. The people in the club didn't seem to mind. He can't remember what other people thought before he turned up in this club – he can't even remember anyone else apart from the people in the club.

This club is a good place, he decides. Nobody judges him, nobody mocks him, nobody forcibly drags him to hospital every Thursday morning in order to be pumped full of chemicals, nobody pins him down while needles are stuck into the veins in his arms, nobody tries to comfort him when he breaks down crying, sliding down the wall in front of the mirror, tears streaming down his pale, hollow cheeks and he starts sliding his hand over his head as though he is running his fingers through his hair except there is no hair there to do so.

"IZAYA!" he hears distantly amongst the thudding beat of the club. He doesn't know how long has passed. He's still curled up by the mirror, covered in vomit but his tears have dried at least. He assumes the moisture on his face must be leftover tears but, when he examines his reflection, he sees blood gushing out his nose at an alarming rate.

Huh. He figures he'd have at least noticed that.

"IZAYA WHERE THE FUCK – Izaya? Fuckin' hell, IZAYA!"

Izaya concludes he likes the club. He doesn't know why he went there or the name of the club or anything else. All he knows is he likes it and that's his last thought before he blacks out.

 _Beep. Beep. Beep._

Coincidentally, it was a Thursday morning when Izaya found out. He'd been sitting at his desk, surrounded by a small army of laptops and cell-phones when one started beeping frantically, almost as though it knew the terrible message which was about to be delivered through it. Izaya hadn't hesitated as he picked it up, watching out the window of his tenth-storey apartment at the world below. They wouldn't know anything about what was happening ten floors above them. They wouldn't break down and cry or get angry and start throwing around street signs or vending machines. They'd eat breakfast, go to work, go home, eat dinner and go to sleep. They wouldn't spare the man staring down at them from ten floors up a second thought.

" _Izaya! How are you doing? Celty is in Ireland right now so I'm all alone and without anyone to cook for me. Do you feel sorry for me? Sorry, that was insensitive of me to say, considering everything – oh wait, I haven't told you yet! Um, I'm really sorry about this Izaya and I really hoped it wasn't true – I got several other doctors to check the results as well just to make sure I was positive with my diagnosis. Um, Izaya, I'm really, really sorry to say this but you have –"_

 _Beep. Beep. Beep._

The tumor, known as medulloblastoma, was located in the cerebellum which was at the back of his brain. It was just over the size of a golf ball, bordering on tennis ball size. It hadn't spread to his spine which was a good thing. Treatment involved surgery to remove as much of the tumor as possible, followed by rounds of radiotherapy and chemotherapy along with steroids mixed in for the fun of it. He had the operation two weeks after the diagnosis. Afterwards he'd been asleep for a week, waking up only to be in excruciating pain to the point where sleep was a much more preferable option. It took two months of recovery until Izaya could even attempt to stand, three until he could walk again and his vision never recovered, nor did his ability to control his hands and feet like a normal person would.

Izaya was told at the beginning of the ordeal not to research survival statistics.

He did anyway.

There was a 60% chance he'd live five more years, a 45% chance he'd live another ten.

After seeing there was less than a fifty percent chance he'd live to see his thirty-fourth birthday, Izaya began doubting whether to continue. Whether to bother with the chemotherapy or the radiation or the steroids. He'd already suffered the operation – he didn't know, for less than a fifty percent chance, it was _worth_ continuing. He'd curled up on the hospital bed he'd been attached to for the last three months with those statistics glowing on his laptop screen for hours, silently contemplating. It was his choice. He could continue. Or he could quit now. Save himself more pain, more humiliation.

But when the man asleep in a chair next to his bed finally woke up, took one look at Izaya's computer screen and Izaya's face, all Izaya's control was taken away from him.

 _Beep. Beep. Beep._

The man Izaya reluctantly supposed was his boyfriend forced him to continue. Rounds and rounds of chemotherapy along with radiotherapy started. His hair was gone within a week, half his body weight gone in two, his usual snarky and slightly sadistic outlook on life gone instantly. He resembled a zombie for the three months of chemotherapy, radiation and steroids Shizuo Heiwajima forced him to endure. A feeding tube was stuck up his nose, a chemotherapy line was constantly hooked up to an IV stand and CT scans monitored the progress of the tumor every week.

 _Beep. Beep Be_ – _"Oi, Izaya? You awake?"_

He is almost glad when control is taken away from both of them.

 _Look what you made me go through,_ he wants to yell, _and it was all for nothing! I'm going to die anyway! It isn't shrinking, Shizu-chan! It isn't going away – no matter how much chemicals and radiation you forced me to put in my body, it isn't leaving. It's going to kill me. I'm the fifty percent which don't survive. I knew that. Why did you make me do go through all this unnecessary pain? Three months after the surgery, three months of chemo and radiotherapy. All. For. Nothing._

"Shizu-chan," he says instead, his voice cracking and a glass of cold water is immediately pressed to his lips and he swallows the cool liquid gratefully. An eye cracks open and he sees Shizuo hovering above him, looking unshaven and stressed, eyebrows knitted together in a scowl and bleached blonde hair revealing dark brown roots. Izaya can't remember the last time he saw him in his bartender suit – all he wears now is sweatpants.

And Izaya supposes that's fair considering all he wears is hospital gowns and a black beanie hat.

He's laid on his hospital bed – he calls it his as he is the one who has been sleeping there for three months straight – and a heart-rate monitor is beeping next to him. An IV line is jammed into the back of his hand and fluids are being pumped into him, making him want to piss badly. His nose tube is back – he couldn't remember if it hurt when he'd yanked it out during his mad dash to get out of the hospital – and he's tucked in under two thick blankets. A radio is turned down so it only creates a soothing buzz in the room and outside he can see autumn leaves falling down, covering everything in red, orange and yellow.

He feels more tired than usual and he can't believe he managed to stay conscious for so long at the club. He very rarely leaves the room, sometimes needing to be wheeled to the bathroom as he's too weak to walk. How did he manage to _dance_?

The powers of alcohol, he concludes.

"I don't know what the fuck you think you were doing, you shitty flea," Shizuo begins and Izaya can tell this speech has been bubbling inside of the blonde all the time he was asleep. That reminds him – how long was he asleep? Collapsing in the club seems like a millennium ago. "I try to get _one hour's sleep_ for the first time in _weeks_ and, the second I wake up, you're fucking _gone._ The nurses were going insane and asking me 'where would he go' or 'what would he want to do' and all I can say back is _'I don't fucking goddamn know where he wants to go or what he wants anymore!'_ Do you even know how dangerous –"

"I want to go home," Izaya interrupts in a weak voice. "That's where I want to go and that's what I w-want to do. I want to go _home_."

Shizuo's face almost looks pained but anger soon overtakes. "You think I want you here? You think I _enjoy_ all this shit? You gotta stay here, Izaya, or else it isn't going to get better –"

"It isn't going to get better anyway, Shizu…Shizu-chan. You heard what the doctor said – stop trying to deceive yourself, ne. No amount of chemotherapy and whatever else is going to make it shrink. It's not going to go away. I don't want t-to stay here. I'm done now. I want to go _home._ "

Shizuo is already shaking his head. "I'm not letting you give up. I said it at the beginning. You're gonna be okay and I'm not going to let you just fuckin' quit on me."

"Shizu-chan," Izaya says softly like he's talking to a child, reaching out and grabbing Shizuo's hand in his. He's so bony and tiny compared to the brute's large, calloused hands. "Listen to me."

"No," Shizuo says stubbornly, turning to glare out the window. The ex-informant can see his eyes are watering and he feels the need to sigh at how many times he's tried to have this conversation with his lover but he resists the need and forges ahead.

This time it's different anyway.

The club had changed him.

This time it's going to be him making the decision.

"I'm not doing it anymore. I refuse to die here. I want to go home and spend however long I have left watching TV on the couch, sleeping in a comfortable bed, eating ridiculously expensive sushi, walking outside with an umbrella when it's raining and building snowmen when it's snowing. I want to sleep in the same bed as you and I want to be able to t-touch you without a nurse telling us to quit it and I don't want to be _here_ in _hospital_ anymore, Shizu-chan. Can't you understand that? I did what _you_ wanted these last three months– now you do what _I_ want for the next couple _._ "

Shizuo's body practically convulses and Izaya knows he's trying not to cry. He would get up and hug him but he's too caught-up in various wires and he lacks the energy. 

"Plus," Izaya adds when Shizuo refuses to speak. "It would be nice to go with some hair."

"I don't want you to give up," Shizuo says finally and Izaya squeezes his hand. "M-maybe it'll suddenly work or something. We won't know if you're just going to fuckin' give up."

Izaya smiles lazily, crimson eyes staring directly into golden brown eyes. "Now tell me what you're really thinking, ne?"

Shizuo begins to cry and Izaya can't remember the last time Shizuo has cried like this. Before his surgery, Shizuo was a mess but he never cried. Instead he destroyed everything in his line of sight and hugged Izaya at every opportunity he could and reassured Izaya it would be okay over and over again but the raven knew he was convincing himself rather than Izaya. He never cried through the lows of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, no matter how much Izaya snapped at him and blamed him for the entire situation, no matter how much pain Izaya was in and how much he cried. He'd stayed strong throughout it all, Izaya supposes, and now it's the end he figures Shizuo is allowed to cry.

"I don't want you…to leave me," he manages in between sobs and Izaya squeezes his hand just a little bit harder, hoping the action is somewhat of a comfort.

"It'll be okay, Shizu-chan. But I need to go home now, okay?"

Unable to speak, Shizuo nods instead.

At some point in that afternoon of falling autumn leaves and beeping heart-rate monitors, Shizuo crawls onto Izaya's hospital bed and lays down next to him, curling into the skinny body. The blonde's head rests on Izaya's bony chest and his arm swings over his waist, face pressed into the cold hospital gown to hide from Izaya's red gaze. No nurse comes to bother them, the radio continues humming and Izaya still really needs to piss but he doesn't want to risk interrupting the peaceful moment and make Shizuo second guess anything. Izaya stares up at the ceiling, at the plastic stars stuck up there which glow when it gets dark.

He's finally going home, he thinks.

No.

He's finally going to die.


End file.
